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September 10, 2006

G143: Red Sox 9, Royals 3

Should Julian Tavarez be considered as a possible starter next season?

In three starts (against Toronto, Chicago and Kansas City), he has allowed eight runs in 14.1 innings, with 16 hits and five walks and 13 strikeouts, for a 4.91 ERA. Not great, but he's been on far more often as a starter (using his changeup more frequently) than when he came out of the pen. (He allowed only two runs in 8.1 innings over his last nine relief appearances.)

David Ortiz was on base in all five of his PA, with three walks, an opposite field single and a two-run home run into the Monster Seats (#48). He scored three runs, as did Kevin Youkilis. Wily Mo Pena, batting cleanup and playing left, had three hits and Mike Lowell had two.

Gabe Kapler had two hits also, but in his three other at-bats, he stranded a total of seven runners -- making the final out in the third, fifth and sixth innings. (Manny had the day off, but that is still no reason to play Krapler. He should be the last guy off the bench every single day. Tito's inexplicable love affair with shitty veterans (see Millar, Kevin and Timlin, Mike) continues. Play Murphy dammit!)

Redsock: To answer your perhaps tongue-in-cheek question, no, of course not. The likely '07 starting rotation at this point is going to be Schilling, Wakefield, Beckett, Papelbon, and Clement. The use of a string of starts used to be a standard practice to straighten out a struggling reliever like Taveras, on the theory that he wasn't getting sufficient in-game work to make whatever adjustments he needed to get back on track. It often worked, and it's annoying that Francona didn't think of this...off of the evidence, the Sox might have had the additional solid performer in the pen they thought they were getting when they signed Julian in the first place.

His performance DOES mean that he should be a first option as an emergency starter next season.

Redsock...saying that the Sox will have Clement in the rotation (given their investment and his lack of trade value right now)is not the same thing as saying I have any faith in him. He has great stuff, and if he is healthy and gets his head screwed on straight, he can be a terrific pitcher. Will he? Probably not, but the Sox will give him another chance, and stranger things have happened.

My theory about Francona's love of shitty veterans is that this bad behaviour was illustrated to him when he first got called up to the Montreal Expos in the early 80s. He had to suffer (along with every other Expos fan) through the inexplicable stupidity of managers like Jim Fanning and Bill Virdon. (Virdon was even dumber than Fanning, which is saying a lot.) Anyway, it must have hit him at a critical time, as now he can't get away from it.